October 17, 2024

NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), headquartered in Asheville, North Carolina, is still recovering from impacts of Hurricane Helene. NCEI has confirmed that all of its employees and staff are safe, and is continuing to support them through the storm recovery. NCEI’s data holdings — including its paper and film records — are also safe.

Operational Updates

NCEI’s broadband internet provider is now fully operational. In addition to the recently reestablished connectivity, NCEI is leveraging facilities and staff in Colorado, Mississippi and Maryland to bring some systems and data ingest capabilities back into operation. NCEI has resumed the majority of its data ingest streams and can confirm that data are being securely archived. All ingest data pathways are expected to be fully operational in the next two weeks.

NCEI continues to work with data providers to recoup data that was not ingested while systems were down. This work will take up to three months to be completed. NCEI will recover as much data as possible, however some observations might eventually be unrecoverable.

NCEI is also restarting and validating its processing systems that generate its value-added products and services that depend on these data. At this time, we do not have an estimate for when specific datasets, services, or products will be fully operational on the NCEI website. Users are encouraged to check the NCEI website for products and services that have been restored.

NCEI archives over 229 terabytes of data each month, maintaining one of the most significant archives in the world, with comprehensive oceanic, atmospheric and geophysical data dating back to the 1700s. NCEI also develops data-driven information products and services to support decision- and policy-makers and researchers across industry, government and academia.

NCEI and its staff are members of the Southern Appalachian communities that continue to recover from the event. NOAA continues to support federal relief efforts around the devastation of Hurricane Helene, and is committed to continuing support for impacted communities now and in the future.